From ... in Social issues Psychology — Sep 9, 2021

Twenty Years On: The Legacy of 9/11

Human Rights Abuses Of Post-September 11 Detainees The September 11, 2001 attacks created a sense of urgency about protecting the United States from extremist armed groups.

Then-US President George W. Bush said the attacks constituted an assault on the fundamental freedoms on which the US was founded. However, the “global war on terror” launched by the US government after the attacks trampled on many of these freedoms. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents abuses against hundreds of non-citizens rounded up in the US in the months following the 9/11 attacks, including arbitrary detention and violations of due process that ran roughshod over the presumption of innocence. Read More >> Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims,and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11 Read the report In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Arabs and Muslims in the United States, and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim, were victims of a severe and violent backlash of hate crimes, including murder, shootings, beatings, arson, attacks on mosques, vehicular assaults, and verbal threats. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents the backlash and the inadequate local, state, and federal government responses to it. Drawing on research in six large cities, Human Rights Watch identifies ways authorities could have mitigated these hate crimes. Read More >> Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Download this report This report, based on research conducted in 2003 and early 2004, focuses on arrests and detentions by US forces in Afghanistan that violated international human rights and humanitarian law, and endangered the lives of Afghan civilians.

The abuses undermined efforts to restore the rule of law in Afghanistan and called into question the US military’s commitment to upholding basic rights. Read More >> Download this report When in April 2004 the first photographs of US military personnel humiliating, torturing, and otherwise mistreating detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq appeared, the US government sought to portray the abuses as isolated incidents. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents that to the contrary, the Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib were subjected to a pattern of abuse that resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore, or cast aside international law banning torture and ill- treatment. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents the widespread prisoner abuse that damaged efforts to build global support for countering terrorism. Read More >> Human Rights Abuses under the Material Witness Law since September 11 Download this report Dozens of men – almost all Muslim – were picked up in the United States in the months following the September 11 attacks and detained indefinitely without charge in US federal prisons. Authorities exploited a 1984 federal material witness law to secure the indefinite incarceration of those it wanted to investigate as possible terrorism suspects. This report shows that as a result of the misuse of this law, people with no connection to terrorism became the hapless victims of the US government's zeal. Read More >> Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo Download this Report Download this Report with Cover The US government claimed prisoners at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were not technically in solitary confinement because they were able yell at each other through the gaps underneath their cell doors, talk during recreation time, and receive periodic visits from lawyers.

The reality, as this report documents, was starkly different: the detainees, all foreign Muslims, were held 22 hours a day alone in small cells, apart from two hours a day of exercise in small outdoor pens, with no contact with family. Human Rights Watch found that these conditions caused the mental health of many prisoners to deteriorate, leading a number to commit or attempt suicide. Read More >> British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan Download report Download report with cover Despite denials by the United Kingdom government, the evidence is clear: The UK intelligence and security agencies were complicit in the torture of five UK citizens by Pakistan security between 2004 and 2007. Based on accounts from victims and their families, among other information, this report documents the cases of five UK citizens of Pakistani origin tortured and ill-treated by the Pakistan’s military-controlled Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the civilian-controlled Intelligence Bureau (IB), or other Pakistani security agencies. Read More >> The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees Download the full report Descargar resumen y recomendaciones en español Download the summary and recommendations in Arabic 概要と勧告(日本語)ダウンロードはこちら Télécharger le résumé et les recommandations en français Human Rights Watch builds on its previous research to make the case that there is sufficient basis for the US government to order a broad criminal investigation into alleged crimes focusing on former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet. Read More >> Counterterrorism Laws Worldwide since September 11 Download the full report Following the September 11 attacks, countries around the world adopted sweeping new counterterrorism laws or revised existing ones. By 2012, over 140 countries had done so, ushering in a dangerous expansion of powers to surveil, arrest, detain, and prosecute in the name of security. While governments have a responsibility to protect their population from harm, this report documents that governments have used these laws not only to detain and prosecute people suspected of terrorism-related crimes, but also to target peaceful protesters, journalists, political opponents, ethnic and religious minorities, and others with no links whatsoever to extremist armed plots or attacks. Read More >> The Civilian Cost of US Targeted Killings in Yemen Download the full report This report documents six US lethal airstrikes against alleged terrorists in Yemen, often using armed drones. It finds that the strikes in some cases killed civilians in violation of the laws of war, and in others may have targeted individuals who were not valid military targets.

The report also finds that the trikes did not meet US policy guidelines for targeted killings that President Barack Obama disclosed in May 2013. The strikes created a public backlash, undermining US efforts against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Read More >> How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy Download the full report The United States has long held itself out as a model of freedom, democracy, and open, accountable government. But as this report documents, these freedoms are being threatened by large-scale electronic surveillance on the practices of journalism and law, professions that enjoy special legal protections under the US constitution as cornerstones of a healthy democracy. Read More >> Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions Download the full report After the September 11 attacks, more than 500 individuals were prosecuted in US federal courts for terrorism or related offenses — 40 cases per year on average until 2014. Many prosecutions properly targeted individuals engaged in planning or financing terrorist attacks. But many American Muslims targeted by the government did not appear to have been involved in any crime at the time they came under investigation. Human Rights Watch documents the significant human cost of counterterrorism practices such as aggressive sting operations, as well as unnecessarily restrictive conditions of confinement, for American Muslims. A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture Download the full report Download the summary and recommendations in Arabic Download the summary and recommendations in Chinese Following the September 11 attacks, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated a global, state-sanctioned program in which it abducted scores of people throughout the world, “rendered” them to various countries where they were held in secret detention, sometimes for years, and in many cases tortured or otherwise abused them.

The program officially ended in 2009. But this analysis of new information released in December 2014 shows that the cover-up of these crimes continued for much longer. It lays out a path for criminal prosecutions of the architects of these abuses at the highest levels of the US government. Read More >> Abusive Night Raids by CIA-Backed Afghan Strike Forces Download the full report in English Download the appendices to the report This report documented 14 cases from late 2017 to mid-2019 in which CIA-backed Afghan strike forces committed serious abuses, some amounting to war crimes, in the pursuit of Al-Qaeda, Taliban forces, and militants affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS).

These crimes included killing civilians during night raids, forcibly disappearing detainees, and attacking healthcare facilities for allegedly treating insurgent fighters.

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